Monday, April 30, 2012

Our cute little Chicken Coop

Alright, if you don't already know about the chicken's, you need to refer back to Being Green - Urban Farming - The Chickens. I'm getting used to the idea of having them around and I've even worked up a good case to keep them. They've been staying in a little bin inside of our house and it's time for them to go. We have a crummy little make shift chicken coop, but... well... I'm a designer. Everything has to be beautiful. Deal.

I looked up chicken coops on Pinterest and found my inspiration... Isn't it beautiful!! It's only $1,250 or your soul! I'm not spending $1,250 on a chicken coop because... well, why do I have to explain?! I have mouths to feed, and they're just CHICKENS!! BTW, I was so right about catching heat for the chickens. People are so narrow minded and totally behind the curve. 5 years ago, Organic food was just a conspiracy, now it's all the fad. -- Backyard chickens is where it's at!

And here's the thing we found on the curb. It was originally a guinea pig cage that someone ghetto rigged out of those crate shelf things that you get at Wal-Mart and some zip ties. Whoever made it had som kickin' ingenuity.

I went to the store and got twice this. I spent $40 total.

We had an extra one of these that we stripped for wood.

The cage sagged in the middle, so we needed some support legs. Using that thingy above, we cut the size we needed and drilled holes to affix it to the cage later.

We also measured out a stick to act as a perch. Chickens like that when they are roosting and we want happy roosters (not roosters but hens) to lay eggs.

The topper piece before.

Topper piece while being painted.

We spray painted the whole crate black. It was originally mismatched with black and grey before. Sooooo much better! We encountered a problem with leveling the ground, the chicks can easily sprang their ankels, so we had to make sure the dirt was even below.

After being spray painted green :D

We reorganized the urban garden! The grass was growing better on the left. Thank you Dexter the digger... Like how the Wild Thing put Dexter's water bowl in the coop? Yea, he's a pain like that <3

Wonderful affixing the perch. I encountered a problem with the stairs. I staple gunned it and put some wood glue on with a clamp. It's starting to look so good!!

Wonderful attaching the supporting legs. We used jute to tie it up. Better than zip ties...

Don't they look great?! This is the cage "open".

"Closed"

I wanted to put handles on the lid since we didn't have any fancy cabinets like Kippen House. Wonderful drilled holes to run rope through.

You have to cut it carefully or it will fray everywhere. I used electrical tape to block it, a hot knife to cut it and melted the ends up with a candle.

We knotted the ends on the inside...

Viola! Handles!!!

Me, putting the last piece on.

Finito! And it looks great!! Wahoo! Now these chickens can get outta my house!

By the way, in case you're wondering why we didn't make a planter on top... We really wanted to, but the cage didn't have cool compartments to get the eggs out and the top would be WAY too heavy to lift on a daily basis. The Kippen House chicken coop is definitely on our "someday wish list" but for now, this is pretty awesome... and we only spent $40.